Why nobody can hear the speeches

Ask guests what went wrong at the last event they attended and a surprising number will say they could not hear. Not the music — the speeches, the celebrant, the MC.

Sound is the least planned element of most events and one of the most noticeable when it fails.

Rooms that look beautiful often sound terrible

The surfaces currently fashionable in venues — concrete, glass, exposed brick, polished timber, high ceilings — are reflective. Sound bounces rather than being absorbed, arriving at the listener several times slightly out of step. The result is a room where volume rises but clarity does not.

Soft furnishing absorbs: curtains, linen, carpet, and people. A room full of guests sounds better than an empty one, which is why the sound check at 4pm is not representative.

The ceremony problem

Outdoor ceremonies have no reflective surfaces at all, which sounds like it should help and does the opposite: sound simply disperses. Wind takes the rest. Guests beyond the fourth row routinely hear nothing of the vows.

A small PA with a lapel microphone on the celebrant is inexpensive and fixes it completely. If there is music, it needs its own feed rather than a phone in a bluetooth speaker.

The speeches problem

A microphone at one end of a long room, guests at the other, hard walls between. Add a hundred people who have been drinking and will keep talking until given a reason not to.

What helps: speakers distributed through the room rather than only at the front, a handheld microphone rather than a lectern one, and an MC who gets the room quiet before the first speaker begins.

Ask the right questions

• Does the venue's in-house system cover the whole room, or only the stage end?
• Is there a handheld radio microphone, and a spare?
• Who is operating it, and will they be there during speeches?
• Has anyone tested it with the room full?

In-house systems are often designed for background music and are not adequate for speech in a full room. Your band or DJ usually has better equipment and will often cover speeches if asked in advance.

Test it properly

A sound check means somebody standing where the speakers will stand, talking at normal volume, while another person listens from the worst seat in the room. Two minutes. It is almost never done, and it catches nearly everything.

More than a decade working alongside AV companies is why Stuey treats this as non-negotiable: the single fastest way to lose a room is for it to be unable to hear what is happening in it.